“The venetian blinds draw shut, the record playing over and over until dawn, until the grooves had worn thin on that one song. I remember thinking we were worlds apart, until I heard your words and they spoke my heart.
I remember thinking I was too far gone, then you reminded me that there is no such thing”
Patsy Moore  “I Remember”

The songs you love in the summer always seem to stand out. Maybe because summer is an easier, freer, and more informal time of year. Or is it because in summer clothes and surrounded by hot steamy (and salty if you're lucky) air we are closer to our senses and feel everything a little bit more. A guy who does an eclectic music show on our public radio station dug up Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" and played it just as my button zapping finger hit his station. You don't have to remember that song to put it into context because from the opening note you can feel waves of heat rising from pavement. Chances are that even if you were a four year old putting sand in  your bucket when you heard it blasting from some beach side dive you'll remember that song and stick it straight into how you felt that day. That is how we begin to live in songs - giving them the power to define the moments, moods, and atmospheres that map our inner worlds.

A few years ago I was staring out the window with a half finished CD review taunting me from my  laptop screen. It was for a CD I adored that would end up becoming pivotal to a lot that happened that summer including my little part in the startup of this website.  It needed a hook and nothing was coming to mind. Little things became a distraction. Some neighbor's kid, up way too late, set off fireworks down the street and the wind blew through the front yard arbor just enough to make it creak, perhaps foretelling the hurricane winds that would wipe it out in less than a month? Procrastinating by book hunting on Amazon.com I found a blurb for an author name Lisa Tucker. Her book was called "The Song Reader." It was about a person who could tell someone's future by asking them what song was playing in their head at the moment. There was a line in the preview review where a character talked about music that "lets you slip past the things you think you know and wish you believed, and get to the heart of who you really are." Bam, there it was. Exactly what I wanted to share with the readers about the possibility this album had to really affect them, and how it was affecting me. Over that summer it would be the soundtrack to a breakup, a startup, getting the guts to finally leave a soul-crushing job that paid too well, and a lot of sweltering candle-lit nights sitting on the porch with my neighbors during a series of hurricane driven power outages. Actually, a few months earlier I had been driving too fast down I-95 doing a first-listen to Peter White's Confidential. When the joyous, bouncy "Jump On It" came on I saw myself walking out of that job and feeling as free as that song made me feel. The cosmic nudge, you might say. When I finally did it I got in the car and immediately cranked that one up and headed for the beach.

On the Live From The Redwoods DVD, Kenny Loggins introduces the song "Leap of Faith" by talking about following your intuition and being willing to take those leaps. He says that one way to tune in to that instinct is to notice the songs that play in your head. It's a way to tune in that isn't as intimidating as meditation or journaling. It backfires sometimes when one of those songs that are just fun and catchy but not much more get stuck in your head. I'd hate to think that Pit Bull's "Calle Ocho" was telling me that I needed an  _____ like a donkey, whatever that means! But in general, if you listen to music your life ends up with a soundtrack. Music can make an empty room feel companionable when you are alone or missing someone, it can motivate you to do anything from work out to clean the house, and  it can console you when things turn dark. During those days after 9/11 Brian Hughes and Pat Metheny Group provided solace in my house as the seemingly endless rain added to our collective grief.

Concerts do it too. You're surrounded by a crowd that is as into it as you are and experiencing a performance where the musicians onstage are connecting and playing without restraint. The Rolling Stones at the Gator Bowl on an August Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. Hot as could be and we could barely see the stage. Al Jarreau and David Sanborn with their incredible bands at Chastain Park in Atlanta, under the stars and looking down on a sea of candle lit tables while the humidity rose from sweltering to stifling. And just last week when a crowd dropped jaws in unison at Ken Navarro's rapid riffs and people ran up to the stage to dance the minute they saw Paul Taylor walk on. The ocean breeze was a part of this, so was the crowd, and the music caused it all to come together.

If you are reading this you probably live in songs to some extent. Otherwise why would you be digging deep into a web-based music magazine. Some people are more inclined to live in songs than others. If you're shy or at a loss for words it's easier to tell someone something by finding a song that says it better and just giving it to the person in question. Or the song may just clarify what you wanted to say. A song can completely change your mood, even dragging you out of a deep depression if it hits at just the right time. Steve Oliver's "Festevo" did that for me,a hot Salsa groove that was so bouncy it could knock the sadness right out of  you. Or a song can just nail a perfect moment and give it a sense of place. Leaving a beach-bar party under a starry sky with an acoustic song called "Half Moon Silver" by a group called Hotel playing through the door that I never heard again but the first line plays clear as new in my mind ("half moon silver in a summer sky.."). Driving 350+ miles from Charlotte to Jacksonville with Pierce Pettis' "Envelopes of Light" playing overandover again - a lyric "driving down the road, with a feeling that he can't identify.." Maybe it's some gaping character flaw, some loss of your grip on reality or the inability to clarify things on your own that leads people to this point. Or maybe it's just hearing a song and going "that's more me than I am now" and following that lead.

That is the gift these musicians give us and that is why it seems so sad when their creativity is restricted by corporate constraints. How is a song that is designed to be unobtrusive and had its essence left on the editing table so it can come in at under four minutes going to have that effect. That's why the ones that aren't format or formula end up being the ones that catch and feed your imagination. With instrumentals you can even fill in the wordless spaces with words of your own, or just feel the music and the place that you are emotionally and physically when you hear it. That's why discovery and sharing are so important. The song that affects you will probably affect someone else.

There is even a book of fiction called "Lit Riffs - Writers Cover Songs They Love." Writers were asked to choose a song that was important to them and then write a story using it as the theme. It's a quirky, eclectic collection of stories wrapped around a quirky, eclectic collection of songs. That fired up my imagination. What song would I write about, what story would it tell? Where would it take place? Who would the characters be and what would they do?
As you move into deep summer start to "listen around." What songs are you hearing by choice and by proximity. Do they capture a feeling or change one. Do you ever stumble across a song that clarifies something you've been thinking about? Have you ever wanted to run to the front of the stage and start dancing the minute you hear the first note? Living in the moment is tough these days with the constant barrage of "next" and "coming soon!" Songs can slow down the world and bring you back to the now. What song would you write a story about? Why not sit on a fresh mowed lawn at sunset and just roll with that. Enjoy the summer. Enjoy the songs.

The summer music playing while I wrote this was Jimmy Haslip's Red Heat and Ken Navarro's The Grace Of
Summer Light. Driving home from work I heard that NPR's “All Things Considered” is doing little features on summer songs all summer long.